


Transference

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS
Genre: Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: Nick thinks that this may just be the longest he’s spent out of the city ever in his life. It's making him antsy, and he takes it out on the only other person there with him - Ellie.





	Transference

**Author's Note:**

> For the weekend challenge - I chose prompt 4, renting a cabin, chopping their own firework. I may have gone off spec a tad.

Nick thinks that this may just be the longest he’s spent out of the city ever in his life. And not just out of the city. Way out of the city. So out of the city as to be off the grid completely, no internet, no phone signal, he’s completely unreachable and while it’s intentional, it’s making him antsy. 

Ok, that might also be due to the reason he’s stuck out here in the boonies, but whatever. He’s about ready to crawl out of his own skin so he can be forgiven for not being rational about this. 

For something to do, he makes two cups of coffee, makes his way out to the front porch, matching his footsteps to the rhythmic thumping he hears. Standing at the railing, he watches for a moment as Ellie swings the axe high over her shoulder, brings it down on the log she’s chopping with practiced ease. The log splits in two, each part falling off the tiny stump and Ellie grabs them, throws them on to the pile at her back. It’s almost up to knee height on her and Nick can’t believe that she thinks they’re going to need that much firewood. Sure, last night had been chilly but he’s not planning on being here that long. 

He leaves her cup on the porch railing, walks down the steps and approaches her. He’s not quiet about it and she turns to glance in his direction. Her face is absolutely blank, no emotion in sight and it unnerves him a little. She makes that face with suspects in an interrogation room. Not with him. “I thought you might like some coffee.” He jerks his thumb back over his shoulder. “Looks like thirsty work.” 

“Thanks.” She puts another log on the stump. “That was nice of you.” There’s edge to her voice that manages to convey another message entirely and when she swings the axe over her shoulder, there’s a look on her face that’s faintly murdeous. It stays there as she splits the log clean in two and Nick might be slightly preoccupied by events beyond his control but even he can see that there’s probably a little bit of transference going on here. 

“Look, Bishop, I know I haven’t been the best company...”

She interrupts him with a snort, throws the chopped log on the pile with a little more force than is strictly necessary. “That’s one way of putting it.” 

He blinks, taken aback at the vehemence in her words. But there’s something else there, something more than just anger. He just can’t work out what it is and that’s something else that unnerves him. Sure, Ellie’s an introvert, she’s guarded, she doesn’t let anyone see anything she doesn’t want them to see. But she lets her guard slip around him, has done that in big ways and small ever since they first met. For him not to be able to read her now... he doesn’t like it. “Bishop-”

She doesn’t let him get any further than her name. “Look, Nick, forget it, ok? I know you don’t want to be here-”

“Damn right I don’t.” The words are out, with considerable force, before he can stop them and she actually flinches like they’re a physical blow. “Benching me like this... I should be out trying to track Eduardo down...”

“Acting like bait.” Ellie pours worlds of scorn into those three words. 

“If that’s what it takes!” Ok, that was a bit loud. He breathes in deeply through his nose, tries to regulate his voice before he speaks again. Another deep breath and he lays down the coffee cup on the chopping stump, aware that his other hand is clenched into a fist. He tries to shake it out but it doesn’t go so well, which makes him realise he was clenching harder than he thought. 

“Gibbs is trying to keep you alive.” Ellie shakes her head, looks up to the blue sky above. “I know this goes against everything you believe but we have to play this out.” 

“So we just wait for someone to come and kill me?” Nick hates this part of the plan. “I’m not good at that, B.” 

Ellie snorts again. “Oh, trust me, that I know.” The words sting a little more than they would from anyone else. “You’ve been a delight to be with the last twenty four hours.” There’s that tone in her voice again and Nick can almost place it now. 

“Bishop...”

“Look, it’s fine. I’m obviously not your first choice to be stuck out here with, that’s fine, I get that.” Except whatever her words say, her face says the exact opposite and Nick finally places the emotion. It’s hurt, pure and simple and it hits him like a punch to the gut. “I just thought we were friends.” She slams her mouth shut then, turns away from him but not before he sees the look in her eyes, one that tells him she believes every word she’s just said. 

He almost wants to laugh because he can’t believe she’s serious. The two of them, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, no work, no Gibbs, no phone calls? Just the two of them in a wood cabin with an open fireplace, a couch in front of it that was made for cuddling on? 

She doesn’t think he wants to be here with her?

Shit, he’s dreamed about being someplace like this with her. 

But not like this. 

“We are friends.” The words don’t seem to do anything to mollify her, only raising a humourless chuckle from her. She doesn’t turn around to face him and a thought comes into his head, one he’s wished for but never dared hope for. Slowly, he walks closer to her, lays a hand on her shoulder. “Ellie...”

She shakes him off, turns on her heel and heads for the cabin. He can’t have that though, grabs her elbows and tugs her around to face him. “Ellie, there is a Colombian drug lord out there somewhere who’s trying to kill me,” he tells her, speaking from the gut. “You are literally the last person I want around me right now.” 

Her eyes widen and she inhales sharply. She looks like she’s just been slapped and he presses his lips together, tries again. 

“You think you know what these people are capable of.” Once he starts, the words come quickly, tripping off his tongue. “You think you do, but you don’t. I know, Ellie, I’ve seen it. If they find me here, if I’m lucky, they’ll kill me straight away. If they find you...” The images flash through his mind, the same ones that had haunted his dreams last night. Ellie, tied to a chair, blood from a thousand cuts mixing with tears streaming down her cheeks. Him, watching as Eduardo’s men beat her mercilessly, watching as they pulled at her clothes and did worse. Ellie’s voice, hoarse from screaming his name, begging him to help her. Her eyes, blank and sightless, staring at him. 

Bile rises in his throat, swelling up and constricting it and he wants to stop because he doesn’t want her to know about the things he’s seen, the things he’s done. The words don’t care about any of that though, they just keep coming, forcing themselves up and out through a clenched jaw and gritted teeth. “The things they would do to you... they would tear you apart a little piece at a time and they would make me watch every. Last. Second. I would watch them hurt you and not be able to help and it would break me, Ellie. It would break me.” 

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until her hands come up to cup his cheeks, until her thumbs sweep under his eyes and come away wet. “That’s not going to happen.” Her own voice is filled with tears but her eyes are dry, determined. “Gibbs, McGee, Sloan, even Vance, they are working around the clock to get this guy.” 

He shakes his head, because Eduardo is cunning enough to have eluded capture for years, until Nick had infiltrated his inner circle. But it’s not himself he’s worried for. It never has been, ever since Gibbs sent the two of them off with her as his babysitter. “Stabilising influence” had been the actual words used, but they’d been able to read between the lines. “If something happens to you...” he whispers, his hands coming up to circle her wrists. He can feel her pulse pounding. “Ellie...”

“It won’t.” He wants to tell her she’s in no position to make that sort of promise but he can’t, because she kisses him instead. Not gently either, oh no. It’s open mouthed and passionate, her tongue sliding over his lips, her hands moving back from his cheeks to tangle in his hair. Any surprise he might have felt vanishes as her nails rake across his skin and he gives as good as he gets, wraps his arms around her waist and pulls him tight against her. They kiss for hours, days or it might just be minutes, until he pulls back and rests his forehead against hers. He gulps down a breath, then another, his heart hammering in his chest and it only gets worse when he sees her mussed hair and dark eyes, pupils blown black with passion. 

He opens his mouth to speak but she shakes her head, takes his hand in hers and squeezes gently. Then, a little smile on her face, she leads him back into the cabin. 

Hours later, after they’ve christened his room (twice, and he’s looking forward to doing likewise in hers later on) and they’ve conserved water by showering together (not wise, given the circumstances but he can resist everything except temptation) they’re lying on the couch together and he’d been right in his assumption that it was made for cuddling. Her head is on his chest, her ear resting right over his heart, while one of his hands plays with the hair at the crown of her head while his other rests on the small of her back, under her t-shirt. It strikes him that it’s a pretty familiar scenario for a couple who only kissed for the first time that day, but then again, considering where his mouth was a few hours ago, maybe he’s overthinking the position of his hands. 

He flexes his fingers against her back and receives in response a sharp intake of breath, a shift closer to him. 

“Sorry.” He keeps his voice low, brings his lips to the top of her head. “Didn’t mean to tickle.” 

“You didn’t.” Her voice is low, caught somewhere between embarrassed and amused he thinks. Then he looks down at her, sees her looking up at him, eyes filled with mirth and her lip caught between her teeth and she looks anything but embarrassed. He moves his fingers again, just to see what happens, and there’s that intake of breath again and her eyes darken with what he’s beginning to recognise as want. 

“Oh...” He says the word slowly, draws it out, files the information away for future use. “So it’s like that, hmmm?” 

She grins impishly, ducks her head so that she’s nuzzling into his chest, tightens her arm around his waist. “Maybe.” 

Nick lifts an eyebrow that she can’t see, moves his fingers again, slowly this time, more deliberately, inches them downwards and she actually whimpers. She catches the sound quickly, cuts it off and Nick thinks that he could listen to that sound all night, wants to listen to that sound all night. 

“Ellie,” he says, suddenly serious because it’s important to him that she knows this, “you know that this... us... it’s not just because of Eduardo, right?” They wouldn’t be the first people to do something like this in a dangerous situation, fuelled by fear and adrenaline, emotions running high. But that’s not what this is, not for him anyway. 

And if he knows anything about the way Ellie operates, it’s not like that for her either. 

Her eyes are dark and serious when she looks up at him, brings her hand up to cup one cheek, just like she’d done earlier. “I didn't think it was." 

The sense of relief he feels can't be overstated. "So when this is all over... I can take you out for dinner?" 

Ellie purses his lips in exaggerated thought, winds her arms around his neck. "How about we stay in for dinner?" 

It takes a second for the suggestion to register with him and when it does, all he can do is laugh. "That works too."


End file.
